There’s Now A New Reason To Get Amazon Prime Membership

Amazon’s big thing right now is its Prime membership. Offering free access to Amazon’s catalog of digital movies, TV shows and music content, along with unlimited cloud photo uploads, as well as free shipping on qualified items. Amazon has today altered the threshold at which deliveries qualify for free shipping for those who do not pay $99 per year to be Amazon Prime members.

Amazon clearly knows that its Prime subscription is its biggest weapon, and getting people signed up to the service is one of its biggest pushes and has been for some time now. So while Prime members do get the benefit of free shipping from Amazon, non-Prime members also can join in the fun if they order something of at least $35 or over, that was until now, as starting from today, that threshold has been increased to $49.

Those who order lots of books will have to spend a minimum of $25 in order to get free shipping from now on, however.

Amazon’s own, updated shipping page on Amazon.com reads:

To place an order online, do the following:

Add at least $25 of books (in which case all other eligible items in the order also ship free), or at least $49 of all other eligible items to your Shopping Cart. Any item with “FREE Shipping” messaging on the product detail page, that is fulfilled and shipped by Amazon, is eligible and contributes to your free shipping order minimum.

At $99 per year, Amazon Prime can save you a lot of money on shipping if you buy from Amazon regularly, and it becomes a real bargain if you use any of the Amazon Prime services as well. If you don’t though, $99 may be a little steep for something you only use occasionally, especially if the excellent Netflix-like free on-demand video service the company offers isn’t something you take advantage of.

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If Amazon start bumping up prices il just use eBay more. Once they see their customers moving away they will have to have a re think. eBay must be laughing.

Cesar Orozco

It’s not a price increase. It’s minimum order bump. No one is going to move to eBay. eBay does not have fast ship times like Amazon.

Stephen Hedger

Yeah I got confused there for a second. I was just meaning if a similar product of from a seller on eBay with free delivery or on Amazon with a 4.99 delivery charge for the same price I’d buy from eBay and wait 2 more days. I’m not that desperate I want something next day anyway.

Cesar Orozco

I see what you’re saying.

Mark Schacht

Recently, Amazon signed me up to a “free” Prime trial membership without my knowledge, charged me a $1 and then began pestering me when I deleted my credit card (so they couldn’t automatically sign me up when my “free” trial ended). F**k you Amazon. You’ve lost my business.